Orphanages: Has Their Time Come Again?

His father, a drunk, died when his son was still young. His mother fled.

But his grandmother took Tyrese and his three brothers and sisters into her home and cared for them, at least until they grew older and more "hard-headed," Davis remembers.

Then she sent 9-year-old Tyrese to the only place left she could think of: Maryville Academy, a modern-day orphanage in Des Plaines.

Today he's 18 years old, bright, well-spoken, holds down two part-time jobs and intends to move out on his own next month. And he thinks plenty of other kids like him belong in places like Maryville.

"Here, someone really cares about me," he said."

Orphanages, which long ago fell into disfavor in the child welfare system, are getting a hard, new look in Illinois as politicians struggle to find new ways to cope with an avalanche of child abuse and neglect cases. The pressure to do so was heightened last week by the discovery on Chicago's West Side of 19 children living in squalor-like conditions.

On Wednesday, Gov. Jim Edgar said state officials are considering re-creating them, in response to what he called the fastest rate of growth in cases the state has ever seen, a problem compounded by a lack of qualified foster parents.

In the last six months alone, the state Department of Children and Family Services has taken custody of more than 4,000 children, he said. Altogether the agency cares for 37,000 kids, up from 8,000 in 1986.

"There's a whole host of options, ways to go with this," Edgar said in impromptu remarks to reporters after addressing the Chicago Bar Association.

". . . I think when we hear the word orphanage we kind of have a vision of Charles Dickens characters. I don't think we want to go back to that," he said. "However, I do think there are situations that have proved to be productive. . . . So those are areas that we are exploring."

Edgar already has plenty of company on the orphanage bandwagon.

The state currently has a 14-member task force looking into so-called "child residential facilities," which would be privately operated but partially funded by state government. The task force was appointed last summer as a result of a 1991 bill sponsored by state Sen. Judy Baar Topinka (R-Riverside), who calls orphanages "an idea whose time has come."

Jerry Slomka, head of DCFS' Division of Youth and Community Service and leader of the task force, called the governor's comments Wednesday "right on target," though he also emphasized the need to search for long-term solutions to the basic problem of family breakdown.

And other orphanage advocates are popping up everywhere.

Last week, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley reiterated his long-held belief that more orphanages should be created. William Maddux, the new supervising judge for abuse and neglect cases in Cook County Juvenile Court, is himself a product of Nebraska's Boys Town and believes more such orphanages are needed. And Cook County Public Guardian Patrick Murphy, whose father spent time in an orphanage, believes they are "a great idea," particularly as the number of suitable foster homes dwindles.

"Is it better to be raised in a good home? Of course," Murphy conceded. "But is living on the streets, or in a two-bedroom apartment with 19 people, or having Mom prostitute you to get drug money better than an orphanage? No way."

Today's orphanages, often simply called group homes, bear little resemblence to the hopeless, dank places made infamous by Dickens.

At Maryville, the largest of several dozen private orphanages remaining in the Chicago area, groups of eight to 10 children, many victims of abuse, live with house parents in individual homes on the campus.

They do chores, get counseling, attend school off-campus, hold part-time jobs and often leave the facility to see movies or shop. There are no gates, no locks, and no one has to beg for seconds at the dinner table.

"It's not like they torture you," said Davis. "A lot of kids (outside) think Maryville is bad. But if you do what you're supposed to do, it's nice. It's kind of like a family."

Today, about 3,000 DCFS wards live in such modern-day orphanages, along with hundreds of other privately placed children. An additional 500 DCFS kids are in similar facilities out of state, Slomka said.

Maryville, the largest of the modern orphanages in the area, has 210 children at its Des Plaines facility and about 900 total in other facilities, many referred by DCFS. The Chicago-based Mercy Home for Boys and Girls, a privately funded orphanage, has 75 live-in residents and provides programs for a total of about 160 kids.

Officials at both places say they could place hundreds more kids if they only had the room.